Anyone had outrageous water bills? Possible faulty meter

[Mittens67]

My water usage has more than quadrupled this year according to my water meter. Nothing has changed in my water consumption which my previous bills show had been the same for years.
I actually use far less than the average daily amount due to my disability because I can’t use the bath or shower but now according to my water company’s online calculator I am apparently using the amount they would estimate for a family of four!
The water company has been less than helpful in my attempts to get to the bottom of this.
There is no sign that I have a leak internally or externally. It’s a detached property so presumably not being affected by any neighbour’s use.
I have asked them to investigate to see if my meter is faulty. They argue that this hardly ever happens, and faulty meters are much more likely to under charge than over charge.
Has anyone had an issue like this?
I have seen lots about faulty energy meters leading to ridiculous bills for customers but haven’t seen much about the same issue with water meters.

Possibly a leak somewhere. You need to ask the waterboard to investigate.

Go through their complaints procedure and contact the Citizens Advice Consumer helpline for advice.

When you say there's no sign of a leak - do you mean no wet patches, or have you properly checked for a leak?

If you don't know how - turn the water off at the stop cock in the house, and then check if the meter is still turning? If yes, there's a leak between the meter and the stop cock, if no, turn the stop cock back on. Make sure nothing is using water and see if the meter is spinning. If yes, there's a leak in the house. If no, then use no water at all for an hour, then go outside and see if the reading has changed. If yes, you've a slow leak. If no, no leak.

You can also run a measured amount of water from a tap and see if the meter ticks over the expected amount, or is mismeasuring. 10 litres is probably the smallest measurable amount.

Water meters absolutely can be faulty and overcharge, they can continuously roll and clock. Or there can be a leak. Do you know where your meter is? Can anyone look at your meter for a few minutes and see if there is anything clocking on it?

This is good advice. We had a leak under the front path which was causing higher "usage" for no apparent reason which we found by doing this kind of investigation

I did, and it was a barely detectable trickle in the toilet.

We had a leak under our garden that didn't show itself for months.

If you can access your water meter chamber, have a good look at it while you are making sure you're not using any water in your home. Check the reading, and then come back in an hour. If the meter moves at all, then you have a leak.

This happened to me. The water board came out to investigate for a leak first , which there wasn’t. He then read the meter and it transpired the staff member who had read the metre previously for the bill period had read it wrong and reported a much higher use than I had used. The person who came to investigate took a photo of the meter and reported It to the company as being their error. It may be worth checking the water metre reading is correct on the current bill.

Last September (2024) I received a letter from my water provider to inform me that there seems to be leak on my property. They detected this as my smart meter was registering that my property was using a minimum of 10 litres per hour . They offered to send someone to come and check what the problem was but the next available appointment was in 6 weeks time. They also recommended I inform my insurance company. A builder I had used recently came and checked all possible areas and pipes inside the house and could not find any possible leaks.
I informed my insurance company who sent over a subcontractor to check. After a bit of investigation they found the leak between the smart meter on the pavement and the front door. It was repaired at the cost of approximately £150.00 for the pipe alone. I paid this. Later I found out they billed my insurance company in excess of £600 for attending to the investigation. Of course this later gave rise to my premiums going up!!

My bills for the 12 months were substantially higher than expected and when I spoke to the water company they asked me to submit a claim for them to be reduced and was given a substantial reduction.

We've had this issue since moving in (5 years) , now it turns out that 'our' water mains off of the main village pipe later branches out to serve 5 more properties, hence astronomical bills for us, the registered user.
All 5 properties are rural and used to belong to one entity, so it kind of explains it. So there are 3 households and 2 businesses with water but without water bills within 5 square miles of us. Next time I go away for a few days I plan to turn the water off at 'my' mains: they can explain to the water company that they have no water supply and also no customer reference and no bills.
I know it's mean but roughly worth 5+ years of free water for them (and 5 years of arguing with the water company for us).

Sorry about the rant @Mittens67 something similar might be happening to you if they can't find a leak on your property?

I got a letter from the water company saying my garage was £1000 in 6 months and check for a leak. I lived alone

turns out it was my toilet that was emptying and filling silently. I got it fixed and sent evidence. Bill written off. I wouldn’t of know if it wasn’t for the bill

Our water company (United Utilities) contact you if your meter shows 'continuous use', rather the on and off use that would be normal, as it may indicate a leak. You are responsible for finding and fixing the leak on your property (but you obviously can't keep doing this every year).

You could ask your provider if there is evidence from your meter of continuous use which would indicate a leak. It could be underground in your property and the water company wouldn't be liable for this.

The meter is not spinning unless a tap is run so I am sure there is no leak.
I can try running off ten litres when I can get help to look at the meter. Hard for me to manage given my disability.
Do you know if this would then show on my meter as as increase of ten on the final numbers? What I mean is, do the meter numbers equate to litres? I presume they do but not really sure.

Yes, had a look today with a friend to help. The meter was not spinning.
It is right next to my neighbours meter and I had heard that possibly the incorrect meter might have been read due to proximity (apparently somebody drives by and reads a wifi signal?) so perhaps that might be the issue.

Good thought, will do

That is not in any way mean!! That is absolutely ridiculous they know full well they aren't paying for water! How can the water company keep charging you, that's totally unfair!

Check your meter 24 hours apart when you're not home op (without anything water consuming being on) and see if it's moved maybe?

I do wonder if I could be funding my neighbours water.
Am going to ask them about their usage and see how their litres per day compares with mine and if there have been any significant changes.

Having just looked at my bill it seems the meter shows cubic metres of water use not litres so I will try to find out how this converts

I am amazed and jealous that they refunded you.
I had a toilet leak internally, flushed after use by me just before we left for a holiday, the mechanism inside the system got stuck, push flush button sprang back as normal , and we got home 2.5 weeks later to find the loo had been constantly flushing. A £400 bill arrived.

I argued - very politely - that it was clean water, and at the very least they could waive 1/2 for the sewage charge, but they still demanded the whole bill be paid.

No, it shows cubic metres which is 1000 litres. Sometimes there's numbers after a decimal point that you don't send in for a reading, these are 100s and 10s (and so on) of litres.

There can also be a little dial / clock thing / several of them, that shows smaller increments, with a number like x0.0001 showing what fraction of a cubic meter it's showing.

They were very good about it all. That amount of water they suggested a toilet and o got it fixed same day I got the bill. I remember them saying as it was the first time they will write it off.

Yes, I worked out that ten litres will be .01 on my meter. Thanks for the suggestion, planning to try this out when it stops blimmin raining!

Thanks for saying that@YesThatsATurdOnTheRug
It's under control the water Cie have admitted that this is the fault - It's all being sorted - should take well under a year 🙄
When they came to investigate, with our mains turned off and no leak detected we were still using something like 10 litres in 10 minutes or something ridiculous.
I don't think any of the people on our bill have any idea who actually pay for their water, to be fair, but they didn't try to find out either 😏

@Jumborollers I had the same thing in my previous property. We didn't find out until the water company had dug a huge trench down the side of my house looking for a leak. They then turned my water supply off and all the neighbours popped out of their front doors asking why their water had stopped. It was like watching a row of coordinated cuckoo clocks.

The water company fixed everything at their cost and estimated my past usage based on my post fix bills. The only problem was that their standard operating manual didn't seem to have this scenario covered and I spent forever on the phone to different people trying to get some action. When I finally got the name of someone with the authority to take some action it was sorted pretty quickly.